Adding relief to brick and stone papers

[detheridge]

Hi folks - I seem to recall many years ago reading that yoiu could add relief to brick and stone paper by gluing it to various grades of sandpaper.

Does anyone know more or am I completely wrong in this?

 

David.

[brossard]

I build card buildings in 7mm.  The brick paper looks fine to my eye.  I will gladly trade excellent brick rendering (no way I could do better) for mortar lines.

 

 

John

[detheridge]

17 minutes ago, 21C1 said:

Place a sheet over some sandpaper printed side up and massage with your fingers over all the sheet.  Peter Denny used to gently score along the mortar lines to give them depth.  Although looking at an actual brick wall from some feet away it just looks flat.

Ah - thanks 21C1! I knew that sort of technique was used somewhere. I'm thinking of using it on stone walls. Anyone who's seen Welsh n.g. stone buildings will know that they're anything but smooth. Yes, I know there are superb stone walls with full relief available in Platicard, but I wondered whether it was possible with card and 'old skool' modelling techniques.

 

David.

Edited May 3, 2020 by detheridge

[brossard]

If I was doing stone, I think I would go for textured plastic sheet from Slaters.  In 4mm Southeast Finecast do textured sheets also.

 

John

[simonmcp]

20 hours ago, detheridge said:

Ah - thanks 21C1! I knew that sort of technique was used somewhere. I'm thinking of using it on stone walls. Anyone who's seen Welsh n.g. stone buildings will know that they're anything but smooth. Yes, I know there are superb stone walls with full relief available in Platicard, but I wondered whether it was possible with card and 'old skool' modelling techniques.

 

David.

I use these https://www.therange.co.uk/arts-and-crafts/papercraft/stamping-and-embossing/embossing/embossing-tools/royal-and-langnickel-soft-grip-embossing-set/#279036 from The Range for to the mortar courses. Another tip is to lay the sheet over some Wills course stone and gently rub it with the largest of those embossing tools.

 

Simon

[George Hudson]

With Scalescenes I always score between paving slabs and stick on a few at random so that they are factionally proud of the surface to give some texture.  Otherwise, they look awfully flat.  I don't have the same perception problem with bricks so leave them as is.  Just a thought.

 

Andrew

[agt613]

I hope no-one trips on the added paving slabs. The compensation could be crippling!

[kandc_au]

On 04/05/2020 at 07:01, detheridge said:

Ah - thanks 21C1! I knew that sort of technique was used somewhere. I'm thinking of using it on stone walls. Anyone who's seen Welsh n.g. stone buildings will know that they're anything but smooth. Yes, I know there are superb stone walls with full relief available in Platicard, but I wondered whether it was possible with card and 'old skool' modelling techniques.

 

David.

A bit late but have you considered printing on  watercolour paper.
The texture is ideal for stone.
Just a thought!

Khris

[14Steve14]

You can get hammered and linen types of white paper that really good when printed on for a slight relief effect. Scoring lightly along the mortar lines also improved things. 

[Jeff Smith]

I have received these via eBay but not yet applied any.  It seems to be printed on embossed wallpaper and looks quite good although the embossing is random and not in line with the courses.  It is English Bond.

 

8 SHEETS BRICK wall O SCALE 1/43 GAUGE 20x28cm EMBOSSED textured paper #

[john new]

On 04/05/2020 at 18:53, simonmcp said:

I use these https://www.therange.co.uk/arts-and-crafts/papercraft/stamping-and-embossing/embossing/embossing-tools/royal-and-langnickel-soft-grip-embossing-set/#279036 from The Range for to the mortar courses. Another tip is to lay the sheet over some Wills course stone and gently rub it with the largest of those embossing tools.

 

Simon

I have a similar embossing tool (from Hobbycraft); after buying it my inherent Yorkshire frugality made me realise a ball point pen after the ink has run out would do the same job.

[Campaman]

I have been using run out ball points pens as well, the only problem I have found is after a while the ball wears due to lack of lubrication and either seizes or drops out.

 

So I got a set of the embossing tools from the range last week.

[monkeysarefun]

For the sake of completeness there is a way to create 3D  relief  that is entirely software based . Its used extensively in the computer gaming industry to generate their realistic worlds and is  called various things such as PBR rendering, and  it is achievable with a bit of learning of  some software packages, such as Gimp to generate the required files from the original image, and Blender to do the rendering in.

 

There are other options but both these are free. There are tutorials on youtube but it IS a learning curve!

 

Results are pretty good, for instance this is the original flat image similar to a scalescenes file..

 

 

Here is the same image  post rendering.

 

 

It also manages to disguise somewhat the repetitive nature of the original image.

 

 

 

 

[T0ny]

Quote

For the sake of completeness there is a way to create 3D  relief  that is entirely software based . Its used extensively in the computer gaming industry to generate their realistic worlds and is  called various things such as PBR rendering, and  it is achievable with a bit of learning of  some software packages, such as Gimp to generate the required files from the original image, and Blender to do the rendering in.

 

There are other options but both these are free. There are tutorials on youtube but it IS a learning curve!

 

Results are pretty good, for instance this is the original flat image similar to a scalescenes file..

---

That is fantastic. The results are very good. Do you have any links to the tutorials?

[DGO]

On 23/04/2022 at 11:34, monkeysarefun said:

For the sake of completeness there is a way to create 3D  relief  that is entirely software based . Its used extensively in the computer gaming industry to generate their realistic worlds and is  called various things such as PBR rendering, and  it is achievable with a bit of learning of  some software packages, such as Gimp to generate the required files from the original image, and Blender to do the rendering in.

 

There are other options but both these are free. There are tutorials on youtube but it IS a learning curve!

 

Results are pretty good, for instance this is the original flat image similar to a scalescenes file..

 

 

Here is the same image  post rendering.

 

 

It also manages to disguise somewhat the repetitive nature of the original image.

 

 

 

 

Technically there are two variations used in software, one is bump mapping where the software simply creates the lighting effect of a bump on a typically smoth surface, the other is displacement mapping where the surface itself is altered by the texture being applied to it, the latter is far more accurate but requires a higher density model which gobbles up more processing power, in the CGI industry it is normal to use both methods with displacement mapping applied to foreground objects and much simpler bump mapping applied to those further back, I could go on but typically it's very boring and theres a lot more to it than just what I've mentioned, 

 

Now the imporetant bit for model railways is that because displacement maps change the actual mesh structure you can use the method to take simple 3d models and apply complex textures to the surface before printing them out, 30 years ago such technigues were the preserve of super high end computers, 20 years ago it got into the realm of PC's and now anyone with a reasonable spec PC including a good amount of RAM can create quite complex models at home and print them out